The Third Prompt

It has been suggested to me that, as an exercise to warm up the creative juices, each day before I sit down to work in my current work in progress I should spend fifteen minutes writing in a "stream of consciousness" manner on a given prompt.

What this means is ... find a writing prompt, set a timer, write whatever comes to mind based on that writing prompt within the time allotted. Don't worry about editing and you go. Don't worry about grammar, punctuation, or spelling. Just write it and allow your creativity to flow.

(I should mention, this type of "by the seat of my pants" writing is the complete opposite from how I normally work. I am a very strict and rigid outliner.)

So ... this is my plan for the winter of 2016-2017. Each day before I go to work on my work in progress, I will select a prompt at random and write whatever comes to mind. I won't edit, I won't worry about typos, grammar or punctuation. I'll just write.

Then I'll post what I write here.

It promises to be an interesting exercise. So without further ado, here is today's prompt:

A man has a terrifying dream in which he is being sawn in half. He wakes to find himself in the Indian Ocean, naked and clinging to a door; a hotel keycard is clenched in his teeth. Write what happens next.

You never think about the thirst when you hear stories of people stranded at sea. Your brain seems to slide over the fact you can't drink the water in the ocean. Something to do with osmosis in the stomach lining and intestines. Who would've thought drinking water would lead to dehydration. So here I sit, blistering in the noonday sun, rows of grand canyons stripe my lips, my eyes gummed closed. My dick shriveled and blistered like some aging, diseased porn star.

The two hours since I woke were spent hiding, floating in the water under the door ... my only salvation ... hiding from the sun. Staying in the shade. That was when the first fin appeared. You worry about never being able to get back up on such a small surface again. You worry your weight will just capsize the door and you'll be stuck in the water. Do it under the threat of a pain-searing death and see what you're capable of.

Looking back, maybe a shark attack would have been better. Faster, anyway, than exposure. They bump the bottom of the door sometimes. Try to kick me loose, bounce me into the water so they can have their snack. Bet they can smell me. The rot already forming before I'm dead.

I think, what if I can sharpen the edge of this keycard, turn it into a knife. Maybe hack away pieces of the closest shark, but the keycard bends. It's not strong enough.

There's no land in sight. No ships or boats. Nothing but me on this fucking door and the sharks. Sometimes I hallucinate. Hear voices coming from the water, from under the door where the sharks are. Like they're calling to me, maybe asking each other where I've gone. Making a plan for how to "get me."

Before this. Before the ocean and the door and the sharks. Before the stench of death settled upon me I'd checked into a room. That much I remember. Not a lot else, but the room ... the cheap wall painting screwed into the drywall, the green carpet. Not green like a pine needle, more like the green of an avocado cut thirty minutes ago, going brown. The matching toilet and sink. The lemon meringue wall tiles in the bathroom. Psychedelic colors.

There's that voice again. "Where'd he go?" And the other voice, "Check the door." And a bump and my body bounces an inch and hits again. Hallucinations must mean I'm getting close. Close to death. Close to giving the sharks a tasty meal.

Who knows how long I've been out here like this.

Then there's a beep. Electronic. High pitched. Like a tuning pipe, but short. Beep. Just once. Looking around there's no one there. No boats.

--- TIMES UP --- (but I'm going to finish my thought)

You'd've heard the diesel roar of their engines before you heard any kind of electronic beep. Then it happens again. Beep. And this time there's a click. Vibration shinnies its way up my arm, through my elbow, into my shoulder, straight to the base of my neck.

Looking down, the maglock on the door, the spot where the keycard goes, it's lit up. Red. Like when you put in the wrong card, or pull your card out, too fast.

Another bump from below, and this time I slide down, my legs splash in the water.

What's it matter? If I fall in, let the sharks have me? Who's going to care?

Beep

I've lived a life of structure. A life of should-be's and propriety. Why not give in to the hallucination? Why not? If I'm on my way out. Why not go out with style? Maybe it'll freak out the sharks. Give them a story to tell their shark friends at least. "Dude came right through the door like he was room service," they'll say. It'll be my little part to the shark community.

I twist the handle. Locked.

Nothing is ever easy.

The keycard slides into the hole. The red light flashes green. The handle twists again and I'm falling. Waiting for the splash and the first bite of jagged teeth. Instead arms are grabbing me, dragging me over avocado carpet, throwing me onto a bed as hard as the door had been.

Voices are talking, asking me where I've been, asking about Bridget, asking where she hid the flash drive.

Like the muse beating me on the head, I think, Sharks don't have to live in the ocean. Then I'm asking for a glass of water.

-- Since it seems like I'm the one counting ... here's 462 words before the time went off. I still find myself going back to correct typos where my fingers get out of control, going back to change a thought every once in a while, to change the way a sentence looks. I'll try not to do that going forward, but it's tough. Thanks for reading. --

The Second Prompt

It has been suggested to me that, as an exercise to warm up the creative juices, each day before I sit down to work in my current work in progress I should spend fifteen minutes writing in a "stream of consciousness" manner on a given prompt.

What this means is ... find a writing prompt, set a timer, write whatever comes to mind based on that writing prompt within the time allotted. Don't worry about editing and you go. Don't worry about grammar, punctuation, or spelling. Just write it and allow your creativity to flow.

(I should mention, this type of "by the seat of my pants" writing is the complete opposite from how I normally work. I am a very strict and rigid outliner.)

So ... this is my plan for the winter of 2016-2017. Each day before I go to work on my work in progress, I will select a prompt at random and write whatever comes to mind. I won't edit, I won't worry about typos, grammar or punctuation. I'll just write.

Then I'll post what I write here.

It promises to be an interesting exercise. So without further ado, here is today's prompt:

Earth was originally an intergalactic zoo that was abandoned after the enclosures broke down and the organisms began to mingle. Give a brief summary of (this) history of Earth and an explanation of it now from an alien's POV.

The tour-ship slowed pulled out of warp drive and instigated thrusters. A blue and green world filled my window on the port side of the ship. The overhead PA system crackled and Mwaktaub's voice filled the compartment.

To your left you should be able to make out the shining blue of planet Earth.

So this was Earth. I'd heard stories ... hell, we've all heard stories. It began as an empty rock. Not even vegetation grew there. Then, one day, the great scientist Orktaphab, while on a mission to Darklon 7, collected a species of amoebas that were to volatile to bring back to our home -- Ymidleban Q. But the amoebas, they had the potential to be the cure we were looking for ... the cure for the degenerative disease every Ymidleban male suffered, a disease that stripped away our manhood in slow tortuous nihilism.

So, Orktaphab brought the amoebas to Earth -- the desolate planet. He built a habitat for himself and his team (and the amoebas, of course) and went to work curing our disease. The allowed the amoebas to grow and thrive within the habitat, and several Ymidlebans traveled hundreds of light years just to gaze upon the microscopic creatures that saved our species.

From that day, as our kind roamed the universe, we would collect species from other worlds and bring them to Earth. We built them all habitats which replicated their own planets and the Orktaphab Foundation collected a fee for any Ymidleban curious enough to visit Earth and gaze upon the creatures. (The Orktaphab Foundation donated all its proceeds to young, aspiring scientests on Ymidleban.)

The first creatures to occupy habitats on Earth were small. Microscopic. Bacteria and viruses. Just larks. You had to take turns at the microscopes to be able to see them, and the Orktaphab Foundation wasn't even pulling in enough to support the expense of feeding the animals. So, the traveled to a distant planet and returned with giant lizards. Beasts four times the size of an escape pod, but just as stupid as the bacteria.

These beasts were quite an attraction. It seemed as though every Ymidleban child came to Earth in those days to see the great lizards. Of course, the Orktaphab Foundation shuffled in other creatures at the same time ... other attractions for people to see that weren't the great lizards. Short, squat mammals, for example -- furry creatures with short legs and wide black eyes. These were small enough you could cradle them in your arms.

They were in the "small animal" section, right next to an enclosure of a winged and feathered creature. Where the mammal had a soft pink nose and a tongue caged behind a row of squat teeth, these winged creatures had some

-- TIMES UP -- (but I'm going to finish my thought)

these winged creatures had some kind of hard protrusion. No tongue. No real nose. Just a ... I forget what they were called ... a bill of some sort planted on the end of its face.

We should have known the planet was doomed the day the forcefields failed and the small mammal creature and these winged bill-faced creatures interacted.

A year later, the habitat for small animals was crawling with this hybrid creature -- it was a small mammal covered in brown fur, but on its face was this horrible-looking abomination. A bill in place of its nose and mouth.



-- Good beginning. This is a fun experiment. The time keeps me from getting too invested in the story. I don't have to really care about what I'm writing because none of it is serious, so I can just write and let my imagination run wild.   463 words before the time, for those keeping track. --

The First Prompt

It has been suggested to me that, as an exercise to warm up the creative juices, each day before I sit down to work in my current work in progress I should spend fifteen minutes writing in a "stream of consciousness" manner on a given prompt.

What this means is ... find a writing prompt, set a timer, write whatever comes to mind based on that writing prompt within the time allotted. Don't worry about editing and you go. Don't worry about grammar, punctuation, or spelling. Just write it and allow your creativity to flow.

(I should mention, this type of "by the seat of my pants" writing is the complete opposite from how I normally work. I am a very strict and rigid outliner.)

So ... this is my plan for the winter of 2016-2017. Each day before I go to work on my work in progress, I will select a prompt at random and write whatever comes to mind. I won't edit, I won't worry about typos, grammar or punctuation. I'll just write.

Then I'll post what I write here.

It promises to be an interesting exercise. So without further ado, here is today's prompt:

It took us three days before we started seeing shapes in the fog.

Benji went on and on about not being able to breathe. He's say things like, "The fog is a poison gas. I know it. It's burning my lungs. Can't you feel it?"

I couldn't. It was just fog. Sure, it was dense. Thick. Almost solid, like cotton candy. But there was still air. It made walking hard, that's for sure. In a week Benji and me'd made it maybe five miles.

There're others out there. In the fog. You can hear them talking sometimes. Trying to start a fire, complaining of the cold. There's too much moisture in the air for a fire. The fog's too thick. All they're doing is burning energy. Maybe that's enough to keep them warm. For a little while, anyway. But it'll exhaust them, too. Make them tired. Weak. They won't have the strength to push on through the fog.

Nobody knows where it came from. This fog. When you hear somebody talking, making their way just like you are, you shout to them. Ask them where they've been. Who they've seen. Trade statistics like that. Each time you ask, any word on what this is ... where it came from? Always the answer is, "No."

Benji and me, we were working. Pouring a concrete patio at some doctor's house. The doctor's wife, she was a looker. Leg that went all the way up. Red hair. Freckles. Benji thought she could've used with some make-up, maybe a dye job. Not me. I would've convinced her to leave the doctor if I could've supported her lifestyle.

Anyways, me and Benji, we were pouring concrete when the fog came. Fast as a muscle cramp, it rolled in. Knocked Benji into the dirt. Pushed against me, backed me up one step at a time to the doctor's back door. Took me an hour to wade through the fog, to find Benji.

I grabbed him. Pulled him back to the doctor's house. Pounded on the door. The wife, the redhead, she opened the door, let us in. A little of the fog spilled in with us, hung there inside the back door like it was waiting for something, waiting for somebody to invite it in.

Phones still worked. At least then. For a day or two. The redhead called the doctor at work, some clinic down the road a couple miles. He said the fog was there, too. Said the radio's telling people to stay inside until the National Guard can show, figure out what it is. Says he'll make it home as soon as he can.

You can hear him on the phone, talking loud, even though it's pressed tight to Red's ear. You can hear him tell her not to let "the workers" in. He doesn't like the looks of "those men." Guess Benji and me are "the workers." Guess we're not supposed to be inside.

-- Time's Up --

Well, fifteen minutes really went by fast. I was getting into that. I'm not sure where it was going, but I was enjoying getting into the head of that character ... getting an idea of what he's all about, how he sees the world.

For those interested, that's 479 words in the fifteen minutes. I didn't go back and edit after the fact, but I also couldn't help stopping my fingers from correcting minor typos. When I get into a rhythm, fingers seem to hold down the Shift button quite a bit longer than necessary and I end up with words like THen or WHen (which I unconsciously go back to correct). I also inevitably get letters out of order on certain words when I type, so I end up with teh instead of the, which I also unconsciously go back and change. By the time I've hit the backspace and realize what I did, it's too late

Maybe one of these prompts will generate a nice idea for a short story I can flesh out one day. We'll see. That's it for today. Time to get to work.